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Not Anywhere, Just Not
Boy meets Girl, Boy marries Girl, and years later Boy mysteriously disappears in this Gordon Lish–style novel.
People are disappearing. And when they return, they can't say where they've "I was nowhere.... And then one day I was back."
At the heart of Not Anywhere, Just Not is a middle-aged couple who still consider themselves to be a boy and a girl, like they were when they first met. One day, like thousands of people around the world, the boy vanishes, and the girl is left to wait, wonder, and worry. Who is he? Who is she, now, approaching sixty? Who were they together? And who will they be when or if he reappears?
This is a world where every morning the cat gets fed and the coffee gets made, but also one in which gigantic words fall from the sky, God stands outside in the cold without a hat, angels ride the subway, and dreams whisper from far away, like something loud trapped in a jar. Not Anywhere, Just Not is a mysterious wind rustling the lexicon of suburban living into strange new iterations. Between the banalities of the domestic sphere, impossibilities drift like dandelion fluff, making the familiar seem strange and the strange seem familiar. Ken Sparling confronts us with the small dramas of our lives and the language we struggle with to express them, bringing us to the precipice of accepted ideas and allowing us to see, with dread and wonder, what might be coming for us all.
"Ken Sparling is a brilliant writer and this book, like all his books, is a beauty. Sparling chronicles the times I fear most—the moments of loneliness, of loss, of ennui—and somehow makes them seem worthwhile, even wondrous, and often flat-out funny. His work makes life look livable, which makes him a wizard to me." - Derek McCormack, Judy Blame's Obituary
"A gorgeous rendition of the domestic uncanny, Not Anywhere, Just Not is an ostensibly quiet book that slowly and carefully unnerves and unsettles you--both because of its precise swapping out of reality and because of just how familiar it so often seems. All of us, Sparling seems to say, are on the verge of vanishing at any moment." – Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unravelling of the World
People are disappearing. And when they return, they can't say where they've "I was nowhere.... And then one day I was back."
At the heart of Not Anywhere, Just Not is a middle-aged couple who still consider themselves to be a boy and a girl, like they were when they first met. One day, like thousands of people around the world, the boy vanishes, and the girl is left to wait, wonder, and worry. Who is he? Who is she, now, approaching sixty? Who were they together? And who will they be when or if he reappears?
This is a world where every morning the cat gets fed and the coffee gets made, but also one in which gigantic words fall from the sky, God stands outside in the cold without a hat, angels ride the subway, and dreams whisper from far away, like something loud trapped in a jar. Not Anywhere, Just Not is a mysterious wind rustling the lexicon of suburban living into strange new iterations. Between the banalities of the domestic sphere, impossibilities drift like dandelion fluff, making the familiar seem strange and the strange seem familiar. Ken Sparling confronts us with the small dramas of our lives and the language we struggle with to express them, bringing us to the precipice of accepted ideas and allowing us to see, with dread and wonder, what might be coming for us all.
"Ken Sparling is a brilliant writer and this book, like all his books, is a beauty. Sparling chronicles the times I fear most—the moments of loneliness, of loss, of ennui—and somehow makes them seem worthwhile, even wondrous, and often flat-out funny. His work makes life look livable, which makes him a wizard to me." - Derek McCormack, Judy Blame's Obituary
"A gorgeous rendition of the domestic uncanny, Not Anywhere, Just Not is an ostensibly quiet book that slowly and carefully unnerves and unsettles you--both because of its precise swapping out of reality and because of just how familiar it so often seems. All of us, Sparling seems to say, are on the verge of vanishing at any moment." – Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unravelling of the World
- GenresFiction
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 6, 2023
1 person is currently reading
99 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 18, 2023
I just… parts of it I understood with that feeling of woah, other people think like that too!? Yet other parts were beyond confusing and I wanted to comprehend the meaning but I just couldn’t figure it out. It made me think. It made me a little frustrated. A little repetitive in elements used, but I think that was intentional and simply didn’t resonate.
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May 23, 2023I bought this book at a book launch and was intrigued by the excerpt read by Ken Sparling. The book was not what I was expecting !! Left me with so many unanswered questions (which I think is the point). I don’t even think I can rate this book since no rating would explain the mundane but complex nature of the story. I enjoyed the writing style and this book has sent me on a spiral of looking at other indie books to explore !!
June 29, 2023
when i finished this book i sat there and kept asking myself what this book was about and what happened and why did it happen, but i don't think i will find any of those answers within the book. we know that people disappear into the unknown and then when they come back, they long for that place- but as we follow the boy and the girl all we see are the moments of grief and wonder and love and disappointment and this is just my way of saying that this book is about nothing and it's about the everything within the moments of nothing and it was beautiful
June 13, 2023
A microscope over normal, boring life as we know it, Sparling reveals our mundanity to be made up by countless, tiny moments of beauty, small pains, larger pains, and the ridiculous. These tiny moments Sparling presents, all so quiet, commonplace, want you to know that nothing much needs to happen for there to be deep, worthwhile meaning there.
July 6, 2023
Not sure what I just read. I have never read a book that had no story but so much story. Took me awhile to get into the writhing style but once I did I liked it. Beautifully written but a frustrating read. I picked this up at a random book store and I’m so glad I did. Read it over a weekend.
October 4, 2023
i don’t think i understood the purpose of this book. or understood it at all.
January 29, 2025
Couldn't even finish it
June 1, 2025
This book intrigued me and seemed to have a lot of potential, but either it fell short of that potential, or I wasn’t smart enough or artsy enough to understand what I was reading. I kept going, hoping it would make more sense as I went, but I think I got more confused along the way. Definitely had its promised moments of making me laugh at mundane life, though, and I enjoyed the writing style.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews